Star Wars Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy

"Horror," you gasp, "don't tell me he's gone forever!". Well no, he'll be making a special guest appearance, but this time as one of your Jedi instructors. As the title suggests, the game offers players the chance to join Luke Skywalker's Yavin IV Jedi academy - a sort of Hogwarts School of witchcraft and wizardry, but for Jedi. Instead of playing as a familiar Star Wars character, the game allows players to create their own, unique, Jedi apprentice by customizing your species, sex, clothing etc, allowing for literally thousands of configurations.

Even better, as you progress through the non-linear missions that you'll be dispatched on by your instructors, you'll be able to specialise in a particular saber style...the basic single-saber, the Anakin-inspired two-saber approach or the pyrotechnic staff-saber, of Darth Maul fame. Saber combat is the main focus of the game, but you can still grab a handy blaster to zap things with.

After you've sufficiently honed your skills in the one player game you can take the fight online (with your custom character, naturally). New multiplayer modes include an objective-based team game called 'Seige', and the ability to re-enact the climactic Qui-Gon/Obiwan/Darth Maul threesome from Episode One in the new 'Power Duel' mode - its a two against one saber showdown...what better way to prove your force mastery than by thwapping 2 birds with 1 stone?

So, loads of new tricks up the Lucasarts' sleeve, no doubt all wrapped up in the usual gorgeous graphics and sound. If Jedi Outcast is anything to go on, this game will be a must-have in any Star Wars fan's collection.


It's all about the lightsaber   November 27, 2003
therealjaneway (Midwest, USA)
12 out of 15 found this review helpful

I don't really consider myself a gamer, but I do consider myself a major Star Wars geek. One day I spotted "Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy" in a list of upcoming games. That was it -- no detail, just the name of the game, but I *knew* I had to have it.

This game was a good buy -- I'm very happy with JA. Players can customize their character, build their own lightsaber (and later decide between dual sabers or a saber staff), choose their Force powers, and take on numerous enemies on different worlds. The early levels are easy, but the last tier of missions gets harder. All those Sith groupies get pretty hard to take down! (Force Grip works really nice, though -- just drop 'em off a nice, high ledge. *evil grin*)
I do have a few quibbles with the game -- for instance....
*spoiler space* (not sure if I need this or not)
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The Force powers you choose don't actually have an impact on if you choose the light side or dark side. As far as I know, you can go all dark powers and still choose the light side, and vice versa. I prefer a sampling of all powers, except Drain and Rage.
Also, I'm annoyed by a certain bounty hunter's invulnerability. I blasted away at him with rockets and lightning and he *would not* die. I even tested this by putting on cheat codes (and there are some fun codes, btw), pulling out the heavy guns, and blasting him until his health bar went completely down, and he still didn't die. Fair warning, y'all. Use Force speed or something.
In addition, let me just say that the story line is pretty lame, and some of the voice acting is awful. But hey, it's Star Wars...remember that acting isn't what it's all about. You're nodding your head -- yeah, you know what I'm talking about.

It's all about the lightsaber. The color, the hum, the screams of the enemy as the blade slashes through them...most satisfying, indeed. Although I beat JA soon after I got it, I still play the game. If you call yourself a SW nerd, you must get Jedi Academy. My quibbles are minor; my enjoyment is off the chart.

Love that 'saber.


"To see the light, you must know the dark..."   November 13, 2004
Andrew C. (USA)
11 out of 14 found this review helpful

(Note: This review is for the PC version of Jedi Academy). Jedi Academy is the sequel to the excellent Star Wars game, Jedi Outcast. It is a shorter game, which includes almost twenty mission that last a total of 20-25 hours. However, it seems more substantial than just an expansion pack and offers several new things that have not been seen in the earlier Jedi games. Overall, I do still think that Jedi Outcast is the star of the series. Nonetheless, Jedi Academy does shine in a number of areas.

Gameplay: Much the same as Jedi Outcast. Your overall mission is to stop evil Jedis from resurrecting Marka Ragnos, a great Sith lord who has been dead for a long time. You have access to the Force and force powers (like push, pull, heal, speed, sense, grip, etc.) throughout the game, and you can actually decide which powers to specialize in. The game does have an alternate ending (depending on whether you choose a light or dark path in the penultimate mission), but only the final mission is affected. The game is fairly easy to learn, and the controls are straightforward (keyboard and mouse). Where Jedi Academy differs greatly from Jedi Outcast is the mission structure and the lightsabre fighting.

There are 3-tiers of missions that you must complete, each tier with five missions (you can do just 4 or all 5). In addition to these 15 missions, there are missions between the tiers for a total of about 19 missions. You can do the missions in each tier in any order, though most people will probably do them in the order in which they are listed. I would recommend doing all of the missions, although you can skip one mission per tier. Generally, the missions are interesting and do tie the larger story together. The only bad thing about the missions is that some of them, like in Jedi Outcast, have a heavy dose of first/third-person "shooteritis"--that is, you'll be looking for doors, switches, hidden passages, jumping sequences, and other annoyances much more frequently than seems necessary. About all of the puzzles can be figured out if you are willing to do enough head-scratching and trial-and-error attempts. However, the puzzles really do not add anything to the game, except for some occasional frustration.

The lightsabre fighting is fantastic, period. If you thought that Jedi Outcast (or the recent Star Wars movies) had amazing duels, the ones in this game are absolutely phenomenal. A number of things have been added to enhance the sabre fights, including more attack modes, acrobatics, martial arts, cool finishing moves, etc. The big addition is the ability to wield two sabres or to use a sabre staff (Darth Maul-style). Playing the game on the second highest difficulty, I found that you can win most fights against dark jedi with minimal reloading of a saved game. However, by the last third of the game, you'll have to fight some truly nasty jedi, who will teach you some real lessons in how to both handle a lightsabre and inflict force powers (that is, prepare to save and reload often). This game gets a number of things right in regard to recreating a Star Wars feel and offering some great gameplay. However, the best feature, by far, is the realistic lightsabre battles.

Graphics: This is a good-looking game. Character animation, environments, weapons, and so forth look convincing. You can customize the appearance of your character (and lightsabre) at the beginning of the game, but not very much beyond a few racial, gender, and clothing options. Cutscenes are decent, but the character movements and lip-syncing are just not up to the quality you would expect in a game like this. Anyhow, I believe that the developers went out of their way to make the lightsabre fights look stunning, which is really the only reason to play this game in the first place.

Sound: All is well in the audio department. Most (if not all) of the music is from the Star Wars movies, so you can't go wrong there. The voice acting ranges from decent to very good. Weapons and atmospheric sounds are as they should be.

If you are a fan of the Jedi Knight game series, or simply like the Star Wars universe, I would definitely recommend Jedi Academy. In my opinion, it is not quite as good overall as Jedi Outcast (or as stable--even with the patch, it crashed on me about ten times, mostly during the loading of saved games). Still, if you can get it at a discount, it's well worth the effort.


Day late and a dollar short of greatness   December 6, 2003
8 out of 9 found this review helpful

Over the years Star Wars fans have forgiven alot in the video games that Lucasarts has produced. Not that most of the games are bad its just that Star Wars is such a beloved franchise that the LA knows that fans will forgive things like the ommission of the balance, polish and tweaking that makes great games in order to fly in an X-wing or hear the hum of a lightsaber under their control.

Unfortunatley Jedi Academy suffers from this neglect. Granted the graphics are good, the sound is crisp and the controls are responsive once you get used to them. All that aside the game just doesn't deliver on several key aspects.

First of all you really don't create your own character. You get to choose from six very similar models and then you can pick out a shirt and a pair of pants. Things like race or hair color are all covered under the "head" option of which there are three for each model. So if you wanted to create a Jedi in your own image or a saber wieldin' wookie you are out of luck.

The game is also fairly predictable and very linear. If you have played Obi Wan or Jedi Outcast then you already know what to expect from most of the levels. Basically you get dropped into the front of a level and you have to fight your way to the back through hordes of inept enemies to flip a switch or fight a slightly less inept boss. This is disappointing because this is the third installment and I was hoping for some variety.

My biggest gripe is that the game is not very well balanced. I don't know why the developers at LA bothered to put in other weapons because you really only need your lightsaber to beat the game. Most of these other weapons are holdovers from the original Darkforces and are ineffective or unnecessary.

The balance of the AI is also a little off. All non-saber wielding foes are very easy and stand still waiting for their turn to be cut down. Dark force users seem difficult at first but once you figure out their pattern of attack they too are easy to dispatch. Clearly lightsaber combat is the focus and attraction of the game but even this key element is unbalanced because the the staff and dual sabers are so vastly superior to the single blade.

Even with all these faults JA is a solid game and anyone who is a fan of the Star Wars franchise will enjoy it. I just wish that the people at Lucasarts would quit banking of the loyalty of their fans and instead start relying on the quality of their products.


awsome   April 14, 2005
Isabel Pohudka (Florida, Mia, USA)
8 out of 9 found this review helpful

This game is great. You can play online with most kills or capture the flag. You can also play with your friend on most kills or capture the flag. Play on Career mode where you start as a young padwan to a jedi master. YOu can pick between dark or light which one will you pick.
This game is affordable and you will not get bored of it.
Buy it